Go home.
Now.
Eris:
Who is she?
What does she want?
I’m not sure what answer I’m looking for… Do I need more fuel for this fire? Or am I expecting them to put it out and cool me down?
Locke:
A mistake we won’t make twice.
We don’t yet know what she wants.
I stare at the words, measuring my breaths as I soak in the last few hours of my life.
Something hot coils through me as if lava has bloomed in my veins.
It takes only three heartbeats to name what I’m experiencing.
Anticipation.
Giddy fucking anticipation.
For the first time since Daniel started circling like a mosquito with a God complex…
I don’t feel so hunted.
No…
I feel like someone else is about to regret chasing me.
Idon’t go straight home after the coffee shop.
I walk.
For blocks.
No direction or purpose… Just motion and noise as I try to outrun the cold coil of realization tightening behind my ribs, letting the caffeine burn off while the dread settles under my skin like wet concrete.
That woman… The one in heels, in precision-made confidence and a smile that felt like a blade.
She knew me.
Not casually.
Not accidentally.
She knew.
She looked at me the way a spider looks at a fly that’s already wrapped in its web. Except I’m not twisted in anything, waiting to be someone’s dinner. Not even close.
But I do come to one glaringly obvious realization. Between Daniel and this woman, I’m going to end up killing someone. And I don’t know if I can explain that to my HimLock guys.
If I do, and they don’t take it well… I’ll have to kill them too, but I desperately don’t want to do that.
